I am looking for a childhood book my mother read to me around 1954 when we lived in Virginia. It was about fairies and lavishly illustrated. My favorite was the center fold illustration of fairies in the forest dancing under a moon that had a gauzy ring around it. It was not Golder Books Treasury of Elves and Fairies by Garth Williams. Any ideas?
Thanks.
To begin, there are these gods/deities in the universe that have just finished creating a world, and they are quarreling amongst each other because nothing in the world was named yet. So the deities decide to either A) create a boy, or B) assign a boy in the newly created world the task of naming everything for them. Thus, the boy goes on many adventures traveling to distant places and giving names to everything. It may sound similar to the Little Prince in the fact that the boy does a lot of traveling to distant places (from what I remember). So in a sense, it is like a version of the story in Genesis of the Bible, except Adam is a boy. However, I know for sure it is NOT the Little Prince! Also, it is NOT the Neverending Story.
So for example, if the boy came across an object or creature, he would ask the gods “What is this called?” and they would respond something like “That’s up to you to decide” along those lines.
I wish I could recall character names or author. The author could have had influence or have been inspired by foreign creation stories/myths/legends (Indian/Arabic, possibly Greek/Persian/Chinese?), so the names might have been unusual/unique.
It seemed like a book aimed for children, yet it was fairly thick and was a chapter book. The copy I had was a hardback may have had a dust jacket, color was off-white with decent spine thickness ((roughly 5/5.5 x 8″ dimensions, about .5″ thick). It was published before 1998, and could be from any decade before the 90s. On the cover featured an image of the boy looking down on a cloud, with short black hair, (his eyes are looking downward) with a celestial background – stars, *maybe* moon also. Again, it is definitely NOT the Little Prince or Neverending Story.
I know it exists and it’s out there! If this reminds you of any title, please help!
This will be fairly vague (sorry!) When I was little (late 70s/early 80s) I had a book that was about a little girl that goes to a fairy or elf wedding. The things that stick in my mind are that it had these really amazing illustrations and a Lupine Fairy who had blue hair that swirled all around her head, there were also fairies who were parachuting in on milkweed fluff. The husband fairy (elf?) had long pointy ears and a crooked nose… Unfortunately that’s all I can remember, none of the actual story except that it is all about them getting prepared for the wedding but it’s one of those things that pops into my mind occasionally and I’ve never been able to figure out what book it is. Any help would be amazing!!
Fantasy novel, published between 1980 and 1995. Possibly Young Adult novel.
The main character is a glassblower who has the ability to control animals by making special glass that is the precise colour of their eyes.
I’m looking for a picture kids book from probably the 70’s or early to mid 80’s. It was like traveling through surrealist or magical realist landscapes. Lots of architecture, like archways and pillars/columns, and far off landscapes, lots of lavender and greys, maybe had a feeling of Magritte paintings with lots of sky in the pictures, and men in suits, and some flat water.
I think it had a landscape orientation. It might possibly be one that has those weird half pages inside of it that show the picture in a different way when you turn the page, similar to Jacko, but it was much larger than that, and I’m not sure. I mostly remember the feeling of the images — surreal and weird landscape. Rob Gonsalves art somewhat reminds me of it: http://bit.ly/1CI0Xyu
Might have even had a man in a suit or bowler hat, maybe a weird statue garden. or an angel or woman.
Not sure if this is enough to go on. Very cool site, hope you can help me as this has bothered me for decades!
I read this book somewhere between 1963 and 1966 when it was new. It was sold through an elementary school book fair. A girl wanders off and finds herself in a magical kingdom. There she is a princess. There’s a fight in a castle. Goblins enter the castle by turning themselves into doorknobs. At some point in the magical kingdom, she wanders up a hill and finds a dragon cave. The dragon turns out to be peaceful, although misunderstood, and she has tea with him and they become friends. He flies her around the kingdom and alights on the roof of the castle with her.
The book was paperback with a light blue cover.
I had a picture book, squarish proportions, about knights who set off on a journey to confront “the wizard Bone,” depicted in the book as a rather dragon-like creature. The art style is VERY reminiscent of Paul Klee paintings during his Bauhaus period – very geometric, abstract; the ‘wizard/dragon’ is sort of like a Pac-Man with sharp teeth – or something like Klee’s ‘Death and Fire’ – the lettering in the book was by hand, with a very stick-figure style almost like Viking runes; flattened picture-plane perspective, etc.
I do seem to remember seeing the word “Klee” on the cover; but given that he died in 1940, if it wasn’t him, it was certainly inspired by his work. Oval eyes like ‘Senecio,’ panels like his ‘Sinbad the Sailor.’ and generally geometric backgrounds like ‘Castle and Sun’.
It seemed to have been published new in the early 1970s, late 1960s maybe.
I’m pretty sure this book takes place in England and is about a girl who has magical abilities. She lives in a town with magical residents. The mayor is able to control the weather. She is being pursued by dark forces and the entire town might also be compromised by this danger. She is learning magic from an older wizard. There’s a scene in an underground library. They may have the ability to time travel, but definitely the ability to transport themselves with magic. There’s a scene at an abandoned boardwalk (in Brighton I believe) and a carousel is there as well. I think it was storming at this scene. In the town, the magic is used to whitewash the fences and keep things sparkly white and beautiful. Each house has a footbridge due to a stream running through town and a garden with a whitewashed fence. The girl knows the mayor. She might be an orphan.
What I remember: an elf/dwarf? sets out on a quest. He pulls a sword out of a muddy swamp,there is a monster. There is a boy/prince? who can turn into a black or white swan. At the end, there is a huge sea wall with ice/nets? Boy saves the day, ship able to pull into harbor, people cheer, flags fly.
This is actually a short story, from a collection of fantasy/SF stories probably published in the early-mid 1980s, possibly a little later.
It’s about a woman who rescues a fairy from her cat. The fairy casts a spell that, at the next full moon, turns her into a mountain lion. She escapes from her house, leaving blood on the shredded sheets, into the country, where she learns to hunt for food and encounters a male mountain lion (and a zookeeper) at a zoo. Meanwhile, stories of her disappearance center around an animal attack. After another cycle of the moon, she turns back into a woman.